A seamless SAR archive will increase the accessibility and the utility of SAR science data to solid earth and cryospheric science researchers. Specifically, the project will provide simple web services tools to more seamlessly and effectively exchange and share SAR metadata, data and archived and on-demand derived products between the distributed archives, individual users, and key information technology development systems such as the JPL QuakeSim and Advanced Rapid Imaging and Analysis (ARIA) Center for Natural Hazards projects that provide higher level resources for geodetic data processing, data assimilation and modeling, and integrative analysis for scientific research and hazards applications. The proposed seamless SAR archive will significantly enhance mature IT capabilities at ASFs NASA-supported DAAC and UNAVCOs WInSAR and Supersites archives that are supported by NASA, National Science Foundation, and the U.S. Geological Survey in close collaboration with European Space Agency/European Space Research Institute.

As part of the proposed effort, data/product standard formats and new QC/QA definitions will be developed and implemented to streamline data usage and enable advanced query capability. The seamless SAR archive will provide users with simple browser and web service API access tools to view and retrieve SAR data from multiple archives, to place their tasking requests, to order data, and to report results back to data providers; to make a larger pool of data available scientific data users; and to encourage broader national and international use of SAR data. The new ACCESS-developed tools will help overcome current obstacles including heterogeneous archive access protocols and data/product formats, data provider access policy constraints, and an increasingly broad and diverse selection of SAR data that now includes ESA/ERS/ENVISAT (and upcoming Sentinel mission), Canadian Space Agency/Radarsat, Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency/ Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS) Phased Array type L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (PALSAR), and Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR)/TerraSAR-X satellite data and NASA/Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR) aircraft SAR data. The list will continue to expand with NASA/Deformation, Ecosystem Structure and Dynamics of Ice (DESDynI) further increasing the need to efficiently discover access, retrieve, distribute, and process huge quantities of new and diverse data.